fairynuff | TEST DRIVE #6

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TEST DRIVE #6

TEST DRIVE MEME

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OPTIONAL SCENARIOS

01. ARRIVING IN THE DRABWURLD.
The Seelie and Unseelie courts welcome you with mirthful revelry and hearty food. After you have been briefed on your purpose here, you will find an endless feast and a night filled with entertainment to placate your concerns. Mingle with new arrivals, sneak down the castle halls and make sure your eyes are always on your glass; fairies and imps have no bias when it comes to tricks!

02. THE STATION.
Looking for a little slice of home? The Station gives you all that and more. Take advantage of the wifi, have a cup of fairy-brewed coffee (the one they didn't spit in) or sit back and relax on the patio. You can even move your things into one of the available rooms!

03. WILDCARD.
Your own scenario! Explore the Drabwurld or simply take advantage of your Locket!

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He smiled thinly. "I do not deny my avarice. But I suspect you have more than a share of your own. It would have taken very little for you to have become like me, especially with something as powerful as the Fused Shadow. I think it no coincidence we were both chosen for this same court."

He studied her for her reaction. Ganondorf did not know her well, but he knew her enough. He knew what her people had been and what they had tried to strive for. Such ambitions did not simply die after generations in another realm. What he saw in her was another interloper and someone who expended a lot of effort to put together the Fused Shadow as her own brand of power.

She wasn't a fool. She had even told her faithful wolf pet that putting together the Fused Shadow could result in something more powerful than either of their imaginings. She knew the stories. She knew the history. The abuse of grand magic and power twisted and pulled at the Twili turning them into what they were. Looking at herself was a reminder of that. Confronting Zant was another reminder. She would never become like him.

Never.

"Me," she parroted him, unsure of how to feel about such a pointed... accusation? How much truth was in it? "Power is neither good nor bad. The outcome depends on the person using it and what it's being used for." Power could be used for prosperity, just like magic. If one ruled the world like a tyrant, then it only made sense for the one to lose himself (or herself) to that power.

"I was doing what was necessary," she corrected him. "That's all. That was the only thing I wanted to do."

"Such an easy thing to claim," he said dismissively. He had done much the same once, when he sought to bring his people out of the desert. But that was another life and he did not have the Gerudo any longer. But he did not believe her. While he agreed with her that power was neither good or evil, he did not believe her aims could ever be so small.

"Yet, I would claim the very same thing."

Truth be told... Midna only knew as much about Ganondorf as the stories had said. That he was once the great King of Evil who had been sealed away to solidify Hyrule's golden age of providence, for such contentment could not exist with him still in the big picture.

"Would you now," less a question and more scepticism, but she couldn't exactly call his bluff on it either. It was possible that once upon a time he was an entirely different kind of man. It wasn't as if people were at one constant through the entirety of their lives and she knew that. Even by looking at herself she was aware of it.

"Care to enlighten me or is that a jewel you intend to keep to yourself?"

He seemed to consider it even as he drained his goblet. Ultimately however, he leaned back and gave a slow shake of his head. "No, I think not. It will be enough that you see my resolve here."

To hear some say it, Ganondorf was a hero. They praised his name for his great deeds. In Mair, he was beloved by his people and treated like a god. Without the taint of his reputation, it had been easy to regain that favor and trust he had so carefully forged in his youth. Only now he was better and wiser. He wondered how many of his fellow shardbearers would risk their life to save him, if it came to it.

She stared at him over the rim of her glass with some consideration. "I see. You want to show me that I am wrong."

About you, remained unsaid. This has 'trap' written all over it. I may not have a choice.

Midna straightened her posture and she gave a nod. "I welcome that. If so, I will eat my words. Yet we will see if you speak the truth." In the back of her mind, she realised he likely didn't have the same power that granted him his kingship. He had been able to use Zelda against them. He couldn't have done that in the court.

She hoped. Midna was no Hero, after all.

He chuckled and shook his head. "Princess Midna, you overstate how invested I am in what you think. It does not matter what you think I am. You might be right, you might be wrong. What of it? I only tell you what's true. This world is a small and dying thing that exists only to be a battlefield. If you care anything for your world, you will do as I do and be glad that you do not need to oppose me here."

He leaned forward on the table, draping his right arm along its edge. The Triforce symbol was dull upon the back of his hand, but by his will it began to glow. But it did not glow with only one symbol as it did for him before. Now there were two where there had only been one. He was missing only one aspect.

Vanity struck again, and yet somewhere inside of her, she knew very well that her thoughts and opinions mattered very little to the Gerudo. His only concern was his prerogative, something he wouldn't be sharing with her easily—if at all, and somehow she got the impression that he had very little intentions of ever gracing her ears with an explanation. She'd certainly done nothing to deserve it. And yet, two could play at that game.

But it wasn't as if she had any great plans set out for her. Just to survive, especially if things were as he said. A battlefield.

She watched him move with wary and suspicious eyes and when she realised it was done intentionally so, her gaze didn't miss his mark. Marks, she supposed. He had one, she thought. Only one. That was what the tales said. Did it mean... one of the others...

No. She didn't want to think that in the slightest.

"...How...?" she asked, unable to conceal her surprise as she brought her eyes back onto his face. "Impossible!" And if she'd been anymore stirred, she would have slammed a hand into the table. At best, it came out in a harsh whisper, as if she had to force the words out.

He graced her with a reptilian smile. He had guessed she had begun to think of him on some different terms where his power and influence was not absolute. Doubtless she thought him to be alone here without Zant's forces at his beck and call. But here, resting on his hand, were his trump cards.

"We play a new game here, princess, and all the rules have changed."

Trump cards, indeed. The kind of cards that made a pit grow in the bottom of Midna's stomach and that was a sensation she never enjoyed.

"So... so it would seem," she managed to get out, though even those words were difficult enough. Yet they felt so solid in form that she could have choked on them, about as much as she could have choked on her wine.

None of this bodes well.

"That genuinely makes you the ruler, if the legends are true," Midna continued after putting herself back together. "Yet here you are and not Hyrule. What a shame that you finally get the power and can't do anything with it." Except she got the impression that wasn't wholly the case. He might not have been in Hyrule, but he obviously wasn't powerless, which meant he probably could turn her back into an imp.

If he really, genuinely wanted to. Yet it'd be such an atrocity to let a beauty like hers go to waste.

It was well within his power, yet it scarcely crossed his mind. That had been Zant's petty revenge, not his. What satisfied him was seeing that she understood where he was. She might taunt him that he lacked Hyrule, but it was quite evident that she knew the futility of crossing him. That alone was sufficient enough for him. Were it only so easy to convince others with only the glimpse of his hand.

"I have found ample outlets for my power," he said dismissively. "I have conquered lands and slain beasts. My name is known all across this land. Some fear it, some praise it. There is no Hyrule, no. But I can wait for it. I have spent untold years waiting in your Twilight Realm already."

She, in earnest, didn't like the thought of being controlled by two mere triangles. Except they weren't mere. Perhaps if days had been older, if she had been more self-righteous, and if she hadn't witnessed Hyrule's plight with her own eyes, she might have seen them as nothing more than aesthetic pieces that were more troublesome than they were worth.

Even without the naivety, they were still troublesome. The gods had a sense of humour when they divided what they called prosperity into three.

"Your name is known all across this land," she repeated. "What good does that do you? Instead of doing something useful, you toy with your conquered lands and slain beasts." Or he had no way of using his acquired power to find a way to return to where he'd come from. And considering the abilities he had at his disposal, Midna was more pleased to see him caught than free to pursue his desires.

"You think in the short term. My Hyrule, the one I sought to conquer all those years ago, is gone. I lost it to the long passage of time I spent in your realm. My people are long scattered - perhaps all slain by my enemies. Where once we kept a sacred temple, they now hold a prison to execute their enemies. But even those wretched men are long dead. If I have to spend another hundred years to leave this place, what of it? Hyrule will still be there, regardless of who populates it. For now, I wait. This place makes for a more amiable distraction than your prison. Even so, it will not hold me forever."

He would return, one way or another. Then, he would visit his wrath upon Hyrule again. It did not matter if it was the Hyrule she knew, only that it was Hyrule at all. The kingdom would endure in his absence and then he would come again and take it unopposed, now armed with power and strength not of that world. He was not wasting his time, but instead planning his next invasion.

And she knew when he said your that he meant her people. Ganondorf's imprisonment had happened too many years before she even rightfully knew of the man. And in those days, they were only words passed down from one to another and collected in tomes. Obviously things had changed for her, while the passage of time for him was somewhat stunted in comparison.

It bothered her that he still made a valid point. Hyrule was always going to be present, regardless of who lorded over it or protected it. And sure enough, Ganondorf would eventually find a way back and would simply reengage his plans of conquest to fruition. The Court of the Unseelie was simply a way for him to bide his time.

He doesn't see this place as a prison at all. He's not a bird with clipped wings. He's an eagle and he knows it.

Successfully quieted for too long, Midna almost shook her head in disbelief. "The power that you've obtained while you're here... Will that go with you upon your return?" she found herself asking. "Does that hold the same for everyone here?" For if it did, Midna imagined her line of thought was transparent. If he got to keep his power, then what was to stop her from gaining some for her? Could she not use it in the event she ever needed to fend him off again? Improbable, but not implausible.

For once, he betrayed his thoughts in his expression. There was a moment where he realized she too could gain power to take back. The thought pleased him little and his expression became a hard line. Yet, his boast spoke the truth of it. Power he gained here would not be lost when he took his leave of the place.

"So long as you retain your shard," he answered icily. "And that is a feat that can prove most challenging."

There was an implied threat there. If she rose too high, he would swat her down if he had to. Laws of the monarch be damned.

Shard. Shard. Midna's knowledge on it wasn't as clear as she wanted it to be, but she had the general gist of how things worked. And she didn't miss the way he subtly addressed her. It wasn't pointed at all, but at the same time, every word he uttered had a literal sharpness to it. If words could only cut...

"I only just arrived," she reminded him with a confidence that she wished she felt more of, rather than a feigned portrayal she was putting on. "I wasn't planning on causing you conflict right away. I need a little time to settle in first. Once I have, I'll be ready to play with you."

He chuckled, though it was not cruel. No, she amused him. Certainly she was brazen and that he could respect, even if it would win her no favors if she meant to make herself an enemy. It would be a waste to have to throw her down when she rose up too high.

"Don't keep me waiting too long," he answered coolly. "I would hate to forget you were even around at all."

At first she said nothing. In another day and age under other circumstances, she could recognise the traits in him that would have made him an intriguing person to be around. A misfortune that things had to be the way they were.

"I would never let you forget me," she replied, as composed as he. Beauty and brains, Midna had them both, and to some extent, both were admirable, she supposed. "Because I certainly won't be forgetting you." She couldn't. For everything he'd done and would do, Ganondorf was worthy of a spot at the forefront of her mind.

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TEST DRIVE #6

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